HOSPITAL staff were on high alert earlier this month after a patient went to A&E at Worcestershire Royal Hospital showing symptoms of Ebola, it has been revealed.

The alarm was raised after the patient turned up at the hospital at 11pm on Monday, November 10, with symptoms leading health workers to believe they had the fatal illness.

The patient was isolated to safe guard other patients, visitors and staff, and it was confirmed the following afternoon that the patient had not contracted the infection.

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust — which runs the Royal along with Kidderminster Hospital and Redditch’s Alexandra Hospital — has refused to confirm details of the symptoms the patient was showing, whether they had ever been to West Africa, or their age or gender on confidentiality grounds.

But the organisation’s chief executive Penny Venables said she was pleased by how well NHS staff had dealt with the issue.

“Every hospital in the country had done lots of awareness work over the past two months, and this was a really good test of our systems,” she said.

Last week your Worcester News reported a man had been tested for Ebola at Hereford County Hospital on Monday, November 17, but also was found not to have the disease.

Figures released by Public Health England (PHE) this week showed 99 people across the country had so far been tested for the infection, which has killed more than 5,000 people across west Africa since last December.

Most of those tested had visited the region but only one had tested positive - nurse William Pooley who contracted the disease while volunteering in Sierra Leone in August and was later given the all-clear at London’s Royal Free Hospital.

The ages of patients tested ranges from under five to 75, but PHE has refused to confirm the breakdown of the amount of men and women and where the tests were carried out.

Symptoms of Ebola – which is fatal in 90 per cent of cases include fever, headache, joint and muscle pain or weakness, sore throat, diarrhoea, vomiting or a rash and if the virus progresses the patient may begin bleeding internally as well as from the ears, eyes and mouth.

For health advice call NHS 111 or call 999 in an emergency.